WHY MOORS WERE CALLED "BLACK-SKINNED" - Mauri or Berber Origins and Descriptions from the Pre-Christian Era through the Byzantine and Crusader Periods

 

                     

      African home of the Gurunsi culture in Burkina Faso (Upper Volta) - a remnant of the type their ancestors once built before moving further southward. Many of the populations of early medieval Ghana were of similar origin to the original Mauri or Beriberi of the Maghreb (North Africa).  The name Berber comes from the ethnic name Beri or Beriberi an ethnonym of the Zagha'i, Izghan or Zaghawa culture known as Sughai or Songhai throughout the Sudan in later times.   

Very sorry friends, I am just seeing many comments on here due to mostly spending on my  facebook page African Ark which has been around now for approximately 3 years. Had no idea people were still coming.  I’ve also been spending time on my new book, The African and Arabian Origins of the Hebrew Bible: An Ethnohistorical Study, published as a dissertation this summer - 365 pages of pure afroasiatic academically-verified history. 

With foreword by Fulbright Scholar and Professor Brannon Wheeler - former Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Washington and current Director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Maryland. Congratulations are due all of us for the wait!: ) (BTW -  I have nothing to do with the pricing of the book. lol!)

The African and Arabian Origin of the Hebrew Bible

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK at this link  African Ark

  Remnants of the "Ethiopic"  town of Germa of Fezzan in Libya.

This article covers the Pre-Islamic and pre-Christian Black Africans called "Mauri" through the Byzantine Period and their East African Origins     Enjoy!: )

Wonderful vintage photo of the remnants of the Berber Mauri in the Riff region of northern Morocco. Early 20th century _ Getty photo

"Ethiopians overran Libya as far as Dyris,​80 ... some of them stayed in Dyris, while others occupied a great part of the sea-board" - Strabo 1st century AD regarding a statement by Eurphorus

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/strabo/1b2*.html

                              Map of the Riff and Tangiers 

       A few centuries before the Christian era the Mauri had taken part in incursions into Spain before the Christian era,[i]  Early and medieval inhabitants of Iberia were very familiar with what Africans looked like of the coast of Mauretania looked like. The 7^th century Christian bishop, St. Isidore of Seville, Spain  wrote poetically of the Mauri as “black” in complexion. His exact words being “The Moors have bodies black as night, while the skin of the Gauls is white.” [Etymologies XIX.xxiii.7]  Of the bishop, Jonathan Conant writes, “…by the time Isidore of Seville came to write his Etymologies the word Maurus or ‘Moor’ had become an adjective in Latin, for the Greeks call black ‘mauron’. In Isidore’s day Moors were black by definition.” [ii]

     Most of the Mauri were comprised mainly of nomadic herders. Pliny and Ptolemy claimed Mauretania extended southward to Essaouira or Mogador and included the Atlas. In the 1^st century Caligula divided the land of Mauretania into Caesariana and Tingitana named for Tingis (Tangiers).[iii] The 7^th century text Laterculus Veronesis lists the lands of the Mauri that were then Roman provinces as Mauretania Tingitana in northern Morocco (with capital Tingi - the later Tangiers), Mauretania Caesariensis (Algeria), and  Mauretania Sitifensis (Algeria) emerging from the Eastern part of Caesariensis and the Mauri peoples there include the Mauri Quinquegentiani, Mazaceces (Mazices), Bacquates ( Baccuates/Berghwata), and Mauri Barbares or Bavares.[iv] [v]

     Pliny mentions the major inhabitants of Mauretania in his time as the Mauri and Masaesyli as being decimated in his time. The Autololes were among the Mauri tribes that arose after this time.  The Bacquates were thought to be the later Bergwata inhabited the mountains of the Middle Atlas.[vi]  The Bavares occupied Mauretania Cesareiensis.[vii]

      Mauri Mazikes or Mazazeces were found in Tripolitania, the interior of Libya and Mauritania Caesariensis. The 4^th century Expositio Totius Mundi speaks of a people in the desert that was called Mazices and Ethiopian. “Deinde post Africae omnem regionem adjacent et deserta terra maxima in austri partibus: ubi aiunt in minima parte ipsius derserrti habitare barbarorum paucam gentem, quae sic vocatur Mazicum et Aethiopum”. [viii]

      It is likely the people called Mauri were the same as the people occupying the coast of North Africa in the time of Strabo, and that they were among people that were a people self-identified as “Mauri” or Maure[ix]  and later known as “Berbers”. The first century Manilius, however, claimed the Moors derived the name Moor “from the color of their faces” and the name proclaimed their identity [Astron. 4.729}. [x]

                     
             he Riff Mountain Moors called Chefchaouen are reminiscent of the peoples once known as Masmuda Berbers that occupied the region.  Described by medieval times (in the works of Abu Shama,  Nasr Khusrau, Ibn Butlan and others as in the time of Isidore of Seville as black =skinned and of robust build. : ) 

     The term black or black-skinned is frequently used to describe to the “Mauri” ethnic groups. William Smiths Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography and says MAURI Μαυροί, “Blacks,” in the Alexandrian dialect, Paus. i, 33 § 5, 8.43. [2.297] § 3; Sal. Jug. 19; Pomp. Mela, 1.4.3; Liv. 21.22, 28.17; Hor. Carm. 1.22. 2, 2.6. 3, 3.10. 18; Tac. Ann. 2.52, 4.523, 14.28, Hist. 1.78, 2.58, 4.50; Lucan 4.678; Juv. 5.53, 6.337; Flor. 3.1, 4.2); …These Moors, who must not be considered as a different race from the Numidians, but as a tribe belonging to the same stock…”  They were also called Maurusii Numidii and likely the same population as mentioned by Euphorus of the 4^th century BC according to Strabo who in his Geography states overran the North African coast and settled in the Atlas.  In the first century Diodorus Siculus Book 20: 57 - – wrote of people met by the Greek Agathocles on the coast of Tunisia “men called the Asphodelodes who are similar to the Ethiopians in colour. [xiii]  Oric Bates identified the Nasamones originally of the Syrtic (Sidra) coast of Libya as the people that made use of the asphodel plant in North Africa. 

Strabo wrote - "the Tartesians report that "Ephorus says the Tartessians report that Ethiopians overran Libya as far as Dyris,​ and that some of them stayed in Dyris, while others occupied a great part of the sea-board".  Dyris is another name for the Atlas Mountains. In the 1st century, Diodorus Siculus Book 20:57 – wrote of people met by the Greek Agathocles on the coast of Tunisia “men called the Asphodelodes who are similar to the Ethiopians in colour. [xiii]  Oric Bates identified the Nasamones originally of the Syrtic (Sidra) coast of Libya as the people that made use of the asphodel plant in North Africa.[xiv]  Today their descendants the Kel Inusamani are part of the the Tuareg.

In the 1st century, Diodorus Siculus Book 20:57 – wrote of people met by the Greek Agathocles on the coast of Tunisia “men called the Asphodelodes who are similar to the Ethiopians in colour.  Oric Bates identified the Nasamones originally of the Syrtic (Sidra) coast of Libya as the people that made use of the asphodel plant in North Africa.[xiv]  Today their descendants the Kel Inusamani are part of the  Tuareg who still go in some places to graves of their ancestors to receive messages like the Nasamones.

    The 1^st c. AD Silius Italicus wrote of “black-skinned Moors and Numidians, and the Garamantes whom the god Ammon sees…” Elsewhere (Pun. 2.432-52)  he states, “Not far off, the sunburnt sister of a black Moor soothes the lionesses trained by her native tongue.”  [xv]        Similarly Juvenal in his Satires (V. 53) refers to “A black, deformed Gaetulian noted for his villainy,or a Moor with long, black, scrawny hands, whom he would even hesitate to pass on the street, waits on him.”[xvi] Another translation reads,  “a running footman from Gætulia, or the bony hand of some Moor, so black that you would rather not meet him at midnight” [xvii]  

     As well, the 1st century Roman poet Martial (born in Spain) in his Epigrams (p. 213) described the hair of a Moor as woolly or kinky. A recent translator says, “Santra a fictional slave cook in a scurrilous epigram of Martial, fathers on his master’s wife a Moorish looking boy with crinkly hair” [xviii] 

    A little later speaking of the Moorish inhabitants of North Africa and their dealings with Syro-Roman women, Claudian writes   “When tired of each noblest matron Gildo hands her over to the Moors. Married in Carthage city these Sidonian mothers needs must mate with barbarians. He thrusts upon me an Ethiopian as a son-in‑law, a Berber as a husband. The hideous half-breed child affrights its cradle.”[xix]  

Another later translation of this same passage of Gildo reads,  “He gives us an Ethiopian son-in-law, a Nasamonian husband, the mixed-race infant frightens its cradle“ (De Bello Gildonico 192-193) [i]  

     The Nasamones were closely tied ethnically to the Garamantes who are also clearly referenced as black-complexioned or nearly black population Ptolemy [1.8.5; 1.9.7] Frontinus, Strat. [1.2.18] and Diodorus [20.57.5] [ii]   and in some instances they even classified as an “Ethiopian” people.  “The dregs of the Garamantes have now advanced to our region and the house slave Niger …rejoices in his pitch-black body. If the voice discharged from his lips did not make him sound human, the gristly demon would terrify living men…." [xxii]  Isidore in the 7th c. wrote that “There are three tribes of Ethiopians: Hesperians, Garamantes and Indians” (Book IX ii 128). [xxiii] The Hesperians were said by Pliny (in Natural History, 8:32) to have lived in the area of the Atlas and river Nigris.[xxiv] (Gaetulia stretched as far as Nigris which separated Africa  (Tunisia) from Ethiopia (the Sudan). They worshipped Mt. Atlas considering it their temple (Maximus Tyrius). Hesiod speaks of the Atlas as the home of the Hesperian Nymphs. [xxv]

    Since the time of the posting in 2020 certain articles have come tto confirm the Garamantes were in fact closely related to other modern sub-Saharans.  

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[i]  p. 162, Ware, Catherine. (2012). Claudian in Roman epic Tradition. Cambridge University Press.   p. 162.

 

[ii] De Marre, Martine Agnes. (2002). Dissertation: “The Role and Position of Women in North African Society.” p. 27, fn. 26.

Another later translation of this same passage of Gildo reads,  “He gives us an Ethiopian son-in-law, a Nasamonian husband, the mixed-race infant frightens its cradle“ (De Bello Gildonico 192-193) [xx] The Nasamones were closely tied ethnically to the Garamantes who are also clearly referenced as black-complexioned or nearly black population Ptolemy [1.8.5; 1.9.7] Frontinus, Strat. [1.2.18] and Diodorus [20.57.5] [xxi]   and in some instances they even classified as an “Ethiopian” people.  “The dregs of the Garamantes have now advanced to our region and the house slave Niger …rejoices in his pitch-black body. If the voice discharged from his lips did not make him sound human, the gristly demon would terrify living men….”[xxii]  Isidore in the 7th c. wrote that “There are three tribes of Ethiopians: Hesperians, Garamantes and Indians” (Book IX ii 128). [xxiii] The Hesperians were said by Pliny (in Natural History, 8:32) to have lived in the area of the Atlas and river Nigris.[xxiv] (Gaetulia stretched as far as Nigris which separated Africa  (Tunisia) from Ethiopia (the Sudan). They worshipped Mt. Atlas considering it their temple (Maximus Tyrius). Hesiod speaks of the Atlas as the home of the Hesperian Nymphs. [xxv]

 

        

Fabulous early 20th c. vintage photo of the Algerian Moors or Mauri of Wargla oasis who epitomized by the Berber people of Corripus time in Algeria and Tunisia and  whose inhabitants were said to have  been Jews since the time of Solomon. : )  "Black faces filled up the tents..." Corripus 6th century

          Flavius Corripus of the 6^th century in writing of the Moors under Antalas of Central Algeria mentioned their black faces in their tents comparing them to a scene out of hell. One classical historian writes, “…during an officers’ meeting, the Moorish chief Antalas is ‘Hades’ surrounded by ‘black faces’ (nigra facies), a war council of a ‘thousand monsters’ lining the ‘broad path out of Hell’.”[xxvi] And,  “Roman citizens in Carthage triumphantly deride Moorish female captives and their children”, and Corippus describes one mother with her children as looking like the crow or raven with her chicks.[xxvii] 

Another of the tribes he mentions under the Moorish chiefs were Silcadenit[xxviii] or Kel Cadenit and the Macares probably designations for the Tuareg tribes of Kel Cadenit and Imaqqoran.

   Remnants of the Zenata Berbers or Moors of Algeria (Timimoun) with their traditional horse mane haircuts

     Ethnic Connections of the Moors with the Horn of Africa and the Yemen

      For the most part, ancient black-skinned inhabitants of Libya known as Mauri, Gaitules and Berbers were linked by ancient authors to the peoples of East Africa and southern Arabia. In the medieval era much of Arabia was otherwise referred to as India Minor or Little India,[xxix] while the region of Abyssinia is “Middle India”.[xxx]  From the early Byzantine era until a late period, southern Arabia and parts of the Horn were at times referred to as “Indian”, just as parts of India would be referred to as “Ethiopian”. (For example, the famed Christian Theophilus, the Indian, is also called “the Ethiopian’ and was thought to have been born in the Maldive Islands.)[xxxi]

    Marco Polo (13^th c.) specifically makes reference to both Aden and Abyssinia as “Middle India”. As well “Benjamin of Tudela speaks of Aden as being in India.[xxxii] This may in part explain the tradition of the Moors being led to North Africa by the “Indian” Heracles/Hercules.

     Josephus considered the “Evileans” (biblical “Hevila”) of Somalia to be ancestors of the Getulians (Berbers) that later became the Masyli and Masaesyli of North Africa by Herodotus.  Josephus in Antiquities 1.134 claimed  the “children of Ham” were “Sabas, who founded the Sabeans; Evilas, who founded the Evileans, who are called Getuli; Sabathes founded the Sabathens, they are now called by the Greeks Astaborans; Sabactas settled the Sabactens…”[xxxiii] The “Evileans” are considered to be the trading people between Arabia and Africa that founded and gave their name to the town of Zeila (ancient Avalis).[xxxiv]. The “Astaborans” were considered people of the Blue Nile or river Astapus.  Strabo also considered the inhabitants of Meroe to be Sabaeans. The idea of the Fezzan being descendants of Ham was reiterated by medieval writers who includes among the children of Canaan - the "Nubians, Fezzan, Zanj, Zaghawah, and all the peoples of the Sudan” (al-Tabari 2: 11).

     In Arabia the tribe appears to be the traders that were named  Hawila or Huwaila.[xxxv] The 12^th c. Yakut al-Hamawi informs the Mahra dialect in Hadramaut was actually still named “Hawil”.[xxxvi]  In ancient South Arabian inscriptions the name Havilah is found as Khawlan and they are dwelling near Sanaa in Yemen.[xxxvii]

   Some ancient authors distinguished the Getules from the Mauri. Others such as Pomponius Mela made no distinction bwtween the two. [xxxviii]  Around the  3^rd and 4^th centuries BC, the tribes of Masaesyli and Masyli arose in Numidia from the Getuli.[xxxix]  The name of the Masyli of Numidia is very possibly linked to that of the Mosyli in the Horn of Africa and the coastline of Aden.[xl] According to Pliny (6, 174) there was also Ethiopian harbor of the Mossylites (in Somalia),[xli] now considered Ras Antarah.

     The ancient Garamantes occupied the area then called Phazania or Fezzan, with Germa as its major city. Some consider they were anciently called Gamphasantes.[xlii] Peoples called Phazaniae are mentioned by Ptolemy not far from the “Ethiopian mountains” and west of Meroe.[xliii]  The Phazani are thus mentioned in an area stretching between North Africa (“Libya”) and Ethiopia (the areas south of Egypt). Pliny [5.5.35] for example mentions the Phazania tribe in relation to the region of the Libyan towns of Zala (Zeila?), Sabratha and Ghadames.[xliv]

However Faysan/Fezzan is an ancient name of an important people in the southwestern part of the Yemen mentioned in the Musnad inscriptions there. The people of the Libyan Fezzan such as the Qaran or Goran and in fact all Berber peoples of the period before the 14th century were also claimed to be Canaanites through various ancestors including Mazigh whom the Targum consideres to be Dedan or Yudadas. As we have pointed out previously the area southward of Mecca called the plain of Kenana is the region of Canaan they were referring to, next to Kus or the Arabian Kush in the region of Zebid. The names of other Berber ancestors include Botr or Badr and Baranis, which are the names of the tribe of Badr and Badrani or Bideran (the name of Siriur and the Pleiades) and Bahran of the Dawasir, who were evidently the Ithran and Aran of Genesis.  Barr or Berr is also an ancient Yemenite ancestor. 

  As with Germa of the Garamantes. The Libyan Ghadames was once a town of Numidia and otherwise called  "Sudaniyya"  and the people were once one and the same.  

Latest research has helped to confirm that many of the peoples related to ancient Saharans and Fezzanis - such as the Garamantes - were closely affiliated with what are generally refetred to today as sub-Saharans. " it can be seen that the Garamantes cluster most closely to the Sub- Saharan Africans and secondarily to the Roman Egyptians from Alexandria and the Nubians..."  Clearly this helps demonstrate why they were suspected to be Nubians by Ptolemy, and why Isidore of Seville refers to them simply as "Ethiopians". (See the article - Biological affinities of the Garamantes and other North African populations on Researach Gate Research Gate - Garamantian article

     

                  . People of Touggourt in Algeria in photo above. Touggourt in the midst of Oases of Gourara, like Wargla and Ghadamis –  were considered part of ancient Numidia.  In the Fezzan were the related Garamantes.  Leo Africanus named Wargla, Tekrur, Sijilmasa, Ifren and Birdeoa as comprising Numidia.  

      Directly west of the Nasamones were the Macae. The name of the  Macae tribe of the Syrtis in Libyan and Numidian coast is another likely linked to southern Arabia as there was an Arabian tribe named Macae. Both Ptolemy [6.7.14] and Pliny [6.26] mention the Macae tribe in Arabia.[xlv] Diodorus made the Macae of the North African region also “more numerous than the other Libyans”.  They were likely considered Gaitules as Strabo who lived around the same period considered the Gaitules the largest of the Libyan tribes. Not surprisingly, Strabo also said the tribes between the Gaitules and the Sea basically “resembled” those tribes of Arabia.[xlvi]  Josephus said the Avalioi (Hevila = Hul or Khaulan) traders between the Yemen and Somalia were the progenitors of the Gaituli. The names of the towns of Zeila or Zawila in both the Fezzan and in Somalia are in fact derived from the name Dhu Awilah (Zawilah or "Havilah") as mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela. 

 The latter wrote - From Assuan it is a distance of twelve days to Heluan where there are about 300 Jews. Thence people travel in caravans a journey of fifty days through the great desert called Sahara, to the land of Zawilah, which is Havilah in the land of Gana(178). In this desert these are mountains of sand, and when the wind rises, it covers the caravans with the sand, and many die from suffocation. Those that escape bring back with them copper, wheat, fruit, all manner of lentils, and salt. And from thence they bring gold, and all kinds of jewels. This is in the land of Cush which is called Al-Habash on the western confines.

The name of the Makka or Makkan Maknah tribe in Arabia are the descendants of these Macae and are known as Jenabah.  They are originally from the Maddhig/Maddhij and the latter was most likely the "Madghis" of Berber lore - a descendant of Cana'an. 

    The later variant Macetae for the Maka or Macae is mentioned by Synesius. [xlvii]

     In addition, the Aramaic Targums or commentaries on the Torah persistently identify the people of northwest Africa especially with the children of Cush.  Zingain another name for the Zaghawa appears as  Sabtecha, and Mauretania is connected with Ra’amah son of Cush. Ezekiel 27:22 reads -  “The merchants of Sheba and Raamah were your merchants. They traded for your wares the choicest spices, all kinds of precious stones, and gold. They were traders in spices, precious stones and gold..." "The Targum related the name of of the  Lubai or Lehabim and Raamah, however, the Targum (Yonathan) has Mavryatinos, which is Mauretania, the area of what is now Morocco and Algeria.. Mavry in Greek came to mean "the blacks". (cf. Yebamoth 63a;)   In an earlier post I mentioned that "Zingani were also Zaghawa and Zaghai whom further west were called 'Sungai' ” or Songhai further south.

    According to Harold MacMichael, the colonial ethno-historian, Ibn Sa'id documented Zaghai as being the name of nations extending between Abyssinia, Nubia, to Barka in the North and Tekrur in the West. The word is also translated in various texts Soki or Zakkai and Sangii or Songhay. The name of the Sanhaga or Sanhaja, one of the three major tribes of Berbers may be related. See the The Tribes of Central and Northern Kordofan, first published by Frank Cass,  p. 107. 

By the time of the ancient Greeks and later Romans, the ancestors of the Zaghai are found in ancient sources under similar names in North Africa. An encyclopedia on the Islamic world relates the name to that of the ancient Zaueces of Herodotus (6^th c. BC) who lived just south of Carthage and the Arzugitani or Arzuges of Orosius, which is connected to the region named Zeugitana by Pliny (1^st c.).[1]  The name Zaghawa or Zawagha the Arabic plural for Zaghai or Zakkai was probably etymologically connected as well.

     The name may also have some connection to that of the Zenata Berber ancestor Zakiyya meaning “pure meat”, and thus also the Hebrew name "Zaccai" one of the tribes of Judah.  The author of one encyclopedia entry stated of the name the Zaghai or Zaghawa  -  “ It is very probable that this name is composed of two elements, Zakiya, which is merely a variant of the Zakiya of the Berber genealogists and Ar is second element recurs in the name of the ancient Libyan tribe of Arzugitani (Ar-zug-itani), identical with the Zauekes of Herodotus and the Zawagha of the Arab historians…” Najendra Kr Singh, A. B. K. (2001). Encyclopaedia of the world Muslims:  tribes castes and communities Vol. 1, Global Vision Publication House p. 153).  

The name may thus have some connection to that of the Zenata Berber ancestor Zakiyya meaning “pure meat”, and thus also the Hebrew name "Zaccai" (one of the children of Judah). The Zaghawa are said to be named after their sheep, The other common endonym or indigenous name for the Zaghawa is "Beria" or “Beriah” or Beribra, which appears to have the same significance as Beria (or Beriah - father of Heber as well a Benjaminite in the Torah). It seems to have some connotation of mouth, spout or fount. From this root also comes the term barbarian, which for Greeks originally referred to people of incomprehensible speech.  This is the folk etymology that has been attached to the name "Berbers" just as Babiru or Babel is often said to signify to "babble" due to the allegorical story of the division of tongues in the Hebrew Bible/Torah.  In actuality the word babble like Bible and Babil are all originated from the same etymological root. 

    It was considered that the Zawagha or Azouagha (Zaghai or Zaghawa)  people before moving southward into the Sahel and West Africa founded the  famous city called Carthage in Tunisia ruled or led by a mythical Queen named “Dido” a Phoenician princess. 

   Less than 500 years ago a visitor to Africa from the town of Granada in Spain named Louis del Marmol Caravajal (1573 AD)  wrote the following –

 “The Azuagos are one of the peoples who spilled into Berberia and Numidia.  These peoples - according to African authors - originally came from Phoenicia, and were called Moors or Morophoros… they were thrown out of the land of Joshua, son of Nau, who lived with the Egyptians, passing to Libya and afterward founding the famous city of Carthage, 1278 years before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was 3929 years after the creation of our world. And according to Ibn Al-Raqiq, for many years they lived in this city, a great stone city with a fountain, saying: 'We are the people who fled the presence of the thief Joshua, son of Nau..."

the Berber woman of the Sanhaja, Masmuda anutama as being of a color "that was mostly black though some pale ones could be found mong them..." See Bernard Lewis's, Race and Slavery in the Middle East. or Mart Brozyna's 2005 book, Gender and Sexuality in the Middle Ages. p. 303.  Ibn Butlan calls the Beja women of the Sudan, "golden colored".

The Islamic Period – Identity of the Mauri as al-Berabir or Beriberi and the Enigma of West African Jews

Corripus’ Maures or Moors  refers to the Berbers under Antalas called Ifuraces[xlviii] in Central Algeria and other tribes of the people called Laguatan. Certain historians have identified the Tuareg Ifuraces or Iforas tribe as the early Ifren. Most other names of the tribes of the Laguatan Maures are retained by the Tuareg or else by the Tubu Gor’an/Qaran (also called Kara), the Zaghawa and other populations of the Sahara and Sahel regions...

End of Part I

Stay tuned ; )

 

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[i] Bates, Oric. (1914). The Eastern Libyans,  p. 235.

 

[ii]  Conant, Jonathan. (2012). Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean,  439-700, Cambridge University Press. p. 269.

 

[iii]  Sigman, Marlene C.  The Romans and Inigenous Tribes of Mauretania Tingitana 

[iv]  p. 172,  Leveau, P. (1973).  L'aile II des Thraces, la tribu des Mazices et les praefecti gentis en Afrique du Nord. Antiquites Africaines. 1.7. https://www.persee.fr/doc/antaf_0066-4871_1973_num_7_1_1450  

 

[v] “Bacquates”  Desanges, J. (1991) Baquates », in Gabriel Camps (dir.), 9 | Baal – Ben Yasla, Aix-en-Provence, Edisud (« Volumes », no 9) [En ligne], mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2012, consulté le 19 avril 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/encyclopedieberbere/1285;  G. Camps, « Bavares », Encyclopédie berbère, 9 | 1991, 1394-1399.

 

[vi]  Marlene C. Sigman. (1977). The Romans and the Indigenous Tribes of Mauritania Tingitana. Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, 26(4), 415-439. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4435574

 [vii]  ibid. Sigman, Marlene. P. 429, fn. 94.

 [viii]   Gsell Stéphane. La Tripolitaine et le Sahara au IIIe siècle de notre ère. In: Mémoires de l'Institut national de France, tome 43, 1ᵉ partie, 1933. pp. 149-166.  P. 161.

 

[ix]   Geography of Strabo 17.3. 26 https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/17C*.html

[x] P. 27  Martine de Marre. (2002). Dissertation: “The Role and Position of Women in North African Society.”

 

[xi]   Geography of Strabo. 1.2 26.

[xii]  (“Dyris”) Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography   (1854) William Smith http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0064%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DD%3Aentry+group%3D7%3Aentry%3Ddyris-geo

 [xiii] (2014). Delphi Complete Works of Diodorus Siculus, Delphi Classics. p. 679  The Library of History of Diodorus Siculus Translation by Rev. Lewis Evans,MA.  Loeb Classical Library , 1954 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/20C*.html

 [xiv]  Bates, Oric.(1914). The Eastern Libyans. p. 168.

 [xv] Sean Mathis. (2004) Visions of Grandeur: Hannibal’s Gaze and Ekphrasis in the Punica of Silius Italicus (MA Thesis Advisor- Dr. Mario Erasmo), p. 27.

[xvi]  Starks, John H. “Was Black Beautiful in Vandal Africa”, African Athena: New Agendas. Editors Daniel Orrells, ‎Gurminder K. Bhambra, ‎Tessa Roynon;  

 See also Connery, John R. (1941) Juvenal and the Foreigner , MA Thesis, p. 253. https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1111&context=luc_theses

 [xvii]  (2020) Satires of Juvenal, Perius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius, Literally Translated into English Prose. Outlook, Verlag. p. 65.

[xviii]  Dalby, Andrew. (2002).  Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World. Routledge.  p. 87.   

[xix] P. 113,  Platnauer, Maurice. ( 1922 ). Claudian  The War Against Gildo by Claudian,   Vol. 1, p. 113. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Claudian/De_Bello_Gildonico*.html

 

[xx]  p. 162, Ware, Catherine. (2012). Claudian in Roman epic Tradition. Cambridge University Press.   p. 162.

 

[xxi] De Marre, Martine Agnes. (2002). Dissertation: “The Role and Position of Women in North African Society.” p. 27, fn. 26.

 

[xxii] Conant, Jonathan. (2012). Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439-700. Cambridge University Press. P. 271

 

[xxiii]   Barney, Stephen. (2006). The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Cambridge University Press.  p. 199.

 

[xxiv]   Pliny’s Natural History. 8:32

 

[xxv]  Malte-Brun, M. (1834). A System of Universal Geography, Or a Description of All Parts of the World. Vol. 2,  p. 52.

 

[xxvi]  Starks Jr., John H. (2011). “Was Black Beautiful in Vandal Africa”, African Athena: New Agendas. Daniel Orrells, ‎Gurminder K. Bhambra, ‎Tessa Roynon.  p. 256.

 

[xxvii]  Conant, Jonathan. (2012). Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean. 439-700, Cambridge University Press, p. 272.

 

[xxviii]  Mattingly, D. J. ( 1983 ). “The Laguatan: A Libyan Tribal Confederation of the late Roman Empire”, Libyan Studies 14. p. 100.

 

[xxix]  Mayerson, P. (1993). A Confusion of Indias: Asian India and African India in the Byzantine Sources. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 113(2), 169-174. pp. 172-174.

 

[xxx]  Adler, Marcus Nathan ( 1907). The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (New York: Phillip Feldheim, Inc. “ fn. 148. https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/tudela.html  

 

[xxxi]  Vasunia, Phiroze. “Ethiopia and India: Fusion and Confusion in British Orientalism”. The East Africa Review. https://journals.openedition.org/eastafrica/314

 

[xxxii]   

[xxxiii]  Josephus Antiquities of the Jews https://lexundria.com/j_aj/1.134/wst

[xxxiv]  

[xxxv]

[xxxvi]

[xxxvii]

[xxxviii]  Note 62 - Piny the Elder Natural History  http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:phi,0978,001:5:1

[xxxix]    p. 192, Ilẹvbare, J. (1974). The Impact of the Carthaginians and the Romans on the administrative System of the Maghreb. Part I. Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 7(2), 187-197. Retrieved August 13, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/41857007

[xl] https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/mosyli-e810520?lang=de

 

[xli]

[xlii]

[xliii]

[xliv]

[xlv]

[xlvi]

[xlvii]   P. 67,  Bates,, Oric. (1967).  The Eastern Libyans.

 

[xlviii]  Bovill,